(In)Equity in education and educational systems is a topic of outstanding relevance. Factors, like, for example, students' socio-economic status or migration background have been found to be strongly related to academic achievement in various studies and this is a constant finding in large-scale assessment studies - especially for Germany. Does educational inequity accumulate over a child's life span or what compensating factors can be identified? Not least because of the topics' timeless meaning the 5th Dortmund Symposium on Empirical Educational Research was focused on questions pertaining to (in)equity. Factors of influence and approaches to overcome (in)equity were discussed by an international and interdisciplinary expert panel, with contributions from Cyprus, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Germany.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Baumert ist Direktor Emeritus am Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung (MPIB), Berlin sowie Honorarprofessor für Erziehungswissenschaft an der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte sind: Individuelle Entwicklung in institutionellen Kontexten, Lehren und Lernen sowie pädagogische Professionalität.